


the red mirror, pt 1

by slimegrl



Category: League of Legends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 21:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17352518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slimegrl/pseuds/slimegrl
Summary: taliyah and jinx are on the road together! will they get through the night without killing each other?





	the red mirror, pt 1

“If you keep that up your face is gonna get stuck.”

 

Taliyah, wide-eyed in wonder at the glossy crimson stone she held in both hands, barely processed Jinx’s jests. She may as well have been giving honest advice; the stoneweaver’s expression had not dipped below absolute exuberance since she and her companions had arrived in Ionia again. She had not had many chances to appreciate her surroundings when she was brought here in captivity all those months ago. Now that she was here on her own terms, she planned on savoring every step of earth she tread. The brown crags and vast seas of sand she was accustomed to couldn’t compare to the country’s soaring canopies and peculiar stone formations. She was unsure whether the calming nature of the scenery or the mystical properties of the earth here had any effect on her weaving, but she felt more and more confident in her abilities as the four ventured further into Ionia. Night had come upon them after a long day of hiking along the well-trodden path inland from the northern port of Driasa. Camp had been set up and dinner started, and Jinx and Taliyah sat alone across the fire from one another while their older travel companions, Yasuo and Riven, searched for firewood in a nearby forest.

 

The winter was taking its time to leave the Ionian foothills. Much of the snow had melted away but the nights still brought a bitter chill that ate its way through Taliyah’s light coat and tunic. She was happy to warm her still lively bones by the fire as she explored the facets of the enormous red gemstone she had plucked from the mouth of a spring earlier that day. She had been waiting all day to study it. The stone was brilliantly reflective and opaque enough to look through with some clarity. Earlier in the night she narrowly avoided a branch being thrown at her head after giggling at the shapes the stone would transform a grumbling Jinx into as she looked into it like a kaleidoscope.

 

As beautiful as it was, the chunk of stone gave Taliyah a strange feeling. No, not a strange feeling - it gave her no feeling at all. She held it close to her face and gazed into it curiously, but only saw her own perturbed reflection silhouetted by the nearly full moon. It seemed so much bigger in Ionia.

 

Jinx was trying very hard to look disinterested in Taliyah’s studies, but boredom had gotten the better of her. She didn’t quite share the stoneweaver’s fascination with Ionian flora. “What, are you gonna eat it now?”

 

“Oh, no. I licked it earlier. It did not taste very nice.”

 

Jinx gazed meekly across the softly crackling campfire at the young Shuriman, her knees clung tightly to her chest. “Jeez, birdie,” she muttered, “I thought I was supposed to be the crazy one.”

 

“If having a healthy obsession with the geological processes of new and exciting lands makes you crazy, then yes! Perhaps I am also the crazy one!”

 

Jinx rubbed her eyes in bewilderment. “Is there such thing as a ‘healthy obsession’?” she mumbled under her breath. “Gotta get me one of those...”

Taliyah stood up from her spot by the fire with a start. “Let us see what I can learn from you, my very pretty little friend.”

She held the stone in her left hand and, eyes skyward, gracefully launched it into the air from her sling with a twirl. It was not particularly heavy and tumbled through the sky in a neat arc, catching the moonlight in its body as it reached the zenith of its flight. Taliyah closed her eyes with arms outstretched and pictured the stone rotating softly toward the earth but stopping inches away, slowly hovering back upwards directly over the fire. She imagined the dancing orange lights it would cast across the campsite, so beautiful that even Jinx would be awestruck.

 

Jinx, who had been watching Taliyah’s experiment like a nosy grandmother through her curtains, had to stifle a laugh as the red stone plummeted into the soft earth with a dull _thud._ Taliyah jolted awake from her daydream and furrowed her brow at the stone buried in the dirt.

“Hm. I must not have been focusing enough. Once more!”

She attempted the maneuver again, and again several times after that with no positive outcome.

 

“That can’t be right. That can’t be right at all!” Taliyah was dumbfounded. No matter how hard she focused, she couldn’t get any reaction from the stone. She felt none of the Great Weaver’s love flowing through it. What could it have done to warrant such a fate?

 

“Maybe I AM crazy. Why won’t it work?” Taliyah paced around the camp, her frustration generating faint tremors with each step. She did not notice. Her only concern was this confounding stone. Yasuo had taught her how to summon the concentration she lacked in the early days of her pilgrimage and Riven had taught her to channel her frustrations into productivity, but neither of their lessons were being heeded right now. She had never failed to manipulate stone like this before.

 

Taliyah plunged the stone into the soft dirt near the fire, took a few steps back and crossed her arms with a _huff._ The wispy arms of the campfire reached brilliantly through the stone’s opaque form, mocking the girl’s mounting frustration by reflecting the growing flame inside her.

 

“I am NOT angry.”

 

“You look pretty angry. I didn’t even know your eyebrows could make that shape.”

 

“I am a LITTLE angry.”

 

“I’ve seen you turn a Piltover diamond into a speeding bullet with your mind and _this_ thing is giving you trouble? You’re losing your edge, birdie.” Jinx drew her tattered blanket tighter around her shoulders. Yasuo and Riven were taking forever to gather firewood. Dumb lovebirds.

 

“You don’t understand! I have never had a problem weaving stone I wished to change before. Most of my trouble comes from stone I _didn’t_ mean to change.”

 

“Uh huh.”

 

Taliyah bit the inside of her cheek. “Surely you have run into this problem before! Perhaps you were caught in a battle and your...weapon was not cooperating? What would you do? How would you fight then?”

 

“I’d use a different gun. I had a lot of them. Like, a _lot._ ”

 

“What if you had only one tool to rely on?”

 

“Guns jam all the time, usually when you really don’t want them to. So you kinda have to prepare for that. Only a crazy idiot rushes in to a firefight without at least one sidearm. And I’m not an idiot.”

 

Taliyah returned to her perch across from Jinx. She rested her chin in her hands and gazed sadly into the red stone. _What would I do if the Great Weaver abandoned me_ , she wondered? _I have relied on Their gift since I left home. What if I did not have master Yasuo or Riven to protect me? What if the Noxians found me again, or what if my home was in danger, or what if…_

 

“Birdie.”

 

_If I can’t move this single stone, how am I going to help anyone at all? Will I end up just like it? Helpless and useless and without value? Who in their right mind would take me in then?_

 

“Birdie...”

 

_Would all the trouble I’ve caused be for nothing? Would I have just wasted master Yasuo’s time? Would I even be the same person without Their gift? Would I be anything at all?_

 

“AGH! BIRDIE!”

 

Taliyah lifted her trembling chin from her hands with a start. A deep, bone-chilling _crack_ erupted from the earth beneath her, sending several small jagged pillars of white stone skyward. The violent rumble sent Jinx tumbling backward off her rotted log seat.

 

Taliyah wiped her eyes of the bitter tears that rested on her eyelids and took in the chaos she had wrought. Their tents were flattened. The spit where once hung a fat pheasant was buried under a layer of soil and ash. Worst of all, the campfire had been reduced to a cold, smoking ruin. Jinx scrambled onto her hands and knees with twigs and mud stuck in her black-dyed braids, in utter disbelief at the loss of her dinner. _Oh no_ , Taliyah thought to herself. _Not again._

 

“Uh. What the fuck, birdie?”

 

“I-I’m sorry-”

 

“It took me like, an hour to start that fire!”

 

“I did not mean-”

 

“And that whole chicken is ruined! I haven’t eaten shit all day!”

 

“I…”

 

“You what?? You didn’t mean to have a meltdown over a stupid rock? You didn’t mean to turn the camp into an uninhabitable crater? Well, you did anyway! Congratu-fuckin-lations!” Jinx paused her rant to catch her breath, her chest rapidly rising and falling while her sharpened nails dug into her palms.

 

Taliyah stood silently, her head bowed in shame. Bright Ionian moonlight was caught in the tears that fell onto her dirty boots, leaving small clean spots in the ash that now covered them.

 

_Foolish, stupid girl. She does not realize her own strength. At this rate she’ll become a natural disaster herself._

 

The words echoed around her skull in a harsh, commanding voice, not her own. Words she had heard in her previous visit to Ionia.

_How can I ever return home if this is what will happen?_

 

She took a quick breath and turned to set the tents back up, not lifting her head from its prostration. Her hands trembled as she struggled to lay the thin cowhide cover over Riven’s tent’s support beams, sending one beam out of its place and bringing the entire tent down with it. Taliyah fell to her knees, exhausted and utterly defeated.

 

Jinx sighed, shook the dirt from her hair and helped set up the beams on the opposite side of the tent. As the two now filthy young women exchanged their respective sides of the hide tent cover, their eyes met for a moment. Taliyah’s eyes, still red from the tears and the dirt she had caught in them, darted away in anticipation for more wounding words. Jinx pursed her lips, but none of the words she was trying to force outward would come. She returned her gaze downward and silently helped set up the other three tents.

 

The pair took their original spots around the now cold fire pit. They sat in complete quiet for a long moment with only the droning song of Ionian cicada filling the silence between them. The moon, closer than the two had ever seen it from their respective homes, provided ample light for the two to secretly read each other’s expressions.

 

“I am sorry. I have acted like a child.” Taliyah dug into the dirt with the heel of her sturdy leather boot, catching pebbles and sending them dancing over one another.

 

Jinx scoffed. “You _are_ a child. What are you, like, twelve?”

 

“Sixteen.” Taliyah wiped her nose. “And a half.”

 

“Well _excuse_ me, birdbrain.”

 

Taliyah let out a soft chuckle. “You can’t be much older than me, can you Jinx?”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean? What, do I look like a kid?”

 

“Well...I do not know. It is quite difficult for me to place. You dress...brightly, and wear your hair like many children I’ve seen elsewhere, but you are also quite tall.”

 

Jinx let out a grumble. “I don’t dress like a kid.” She wore a black canvas letter jacket over a pink sweatshirt with frayed, faded green shorts and striped leggings descending into her bulky black combat boots. She had multitudes of different scarves she would swap out each day. Her winter outfit. She had not yet noticed her shock-blue roots coming in to interrupt the murky black matte dye she had applied to her hair months ago. She stirred the ash in the firepit with her steel-toed boot tip. “I look cool.”

“I certainly cannot argue with that.” Taliyah thought back to home. The nasaaj dressed their children in bright colors and vibrant patterns so they could not get lost wandering off into the desert. As they grew older and learned to weave their own fabric, they would traditionally shift to a more muted color palette that complemented their surroundings. However, they were always well-covered from neck to foot. The desert sun had no compassion for those who chose to expose their skin to its punishing rays. Jinx’s wardrobe was something Taliyah had never thought practical in any circumstance, but she appreciated its brazenness nonetheless. On her more adventurous days she had actually been considering asking to borrow some of Jinx’s clothes, but always found herself lacking the bravery to dress so lightly. Most of Jinx’s outfits were pieces pulled randomly from her overstuffed pack, many stained black with a mixture of engine lubricant and gunpowder. Piltovian boutiques were one of her favorite minor raids to run back in the day.

 

Taliyah hugged her knees to her chest and held tight onto her tunic’s drooping sleeves in an attempt to keep her fingers from freezing together. Her energy was completely spent from trying to wring life from her baffling gemstone. She had recently learned to accelerate the particles within stones without breaking them, causing them to heat up to whichever temperature she saw fit. She had gathered some smooth stones from the creek earlier that fit neatly into ones fist for just this purpose but she simply lacked the vitality to do anything useful with them at the moment.

 

Jinx brushed clumps of ash from her blanket and tried to wrap it around her entire body. Mist materialized in her breath with each annoyed sigh as she was unable to fit her ankles under the cover. _I wasn’t even that hungry,_ she admitted to herself. _Why’d I go and yell at birdie? And why can’t I say anything to take it back? Ugh._ She snuck a peek across the camp and saw that Taliyah was faring far worse. After lending her cloak to Riven she only had a light coat to keep the late winter chill at bay and it wasn’t doing her much good without a fire. _Shit. These are my only warm clothes._ She clung tight to her ancient blanket, taking care not to poke another hole in it. She’d had it since Zaun. It was one of very few mementos that she kept since she left Piltover for good, along with her Zapper and a few other trinkets. Her stomach growled in betrayal. _I can’t believe that whole chicken is ruined._

She peeked up at Taliyah. She had packed herself into what was practically a shivering, hungry orb. She looked so small. _Oh, come on._ The lump in Jinx’s throat was ready to burst. _If I didn’t know her better I’d think she’s trying to make me feel bad._ She shifted her eyes to each side to make sure some unseen spectator wasn’t watching. _This is purely for mutual survival. Yep. Just so I don’t freeze to death._ She sullenly stood up and began shuffling toward Taliyah, blanket drawn around her torso like a vice grip. _Maybe freezing to death wouldn’t be that bad, actually._ Before she had even figured out what she was doing, Jinx was standing awkwardly over the frozen stoneweaver who looked up at her with mild terror in her eyes.

 

“Um, miss Jinx? Is everything all ri-”

 

Jinx plopped down practically on top of Taliyah. She let out a small yelp as the log they sat on shifted further into the dirt.

 

“This is huddling. You have to huddle together with someone to not die of hyperthermioids.” Jinx looked straight ahead into space, completely taken aback at her own actions.

 

This was the closest she had ever been to Jinx for more than a few seconds. Her personal space was fiercely guarded. “You mean hypothermia?”

 

“No, not that one.”

 

“I see.”

 

“It’s just science.” Jinx avoided eye contact as if her life depended on it.

 

“I like science. Weaving stone, in many ways, is a scientific process in itself. ”

 

“Everything is some kinda science. Even the weirdest magic can be explained somehow. That’s where Hextech comes from. Magic that the eggheads in Piltover figured out how to turn into guns.”

 

“You’ve used Hextech tools, haven’t you? Does that make you a wizard?” A quiet giggle escaped Taliyah’s chest. She imagined Jinx with a long blue beard and a pointy hat.

 

Jinx turned her nostrils up at the thought. “Ew, no. I would never turn out to be a nerd like that.”

 

 _Hextech ‘tools’, she said_. _Those Piltie arcologists don’t make tools. They just make bigger and smarter weapons. Government contracts. They make leverage of mass destruction. They don’t use it to help people. She knows that, right?_

Taliyah let out a long exhalation, watching the cloud of mist escape her mouth and diffuse into the murky night. “You know, when I first arrived in this land, when the winter was at its peak, that was the first time I saw my own breath.”

 

“Yeah, I guess it doesn’t get too cold in the desert.”

 

“It does not. When I saw smoke coming out of my lungs, I thought I had discovered a new power. I thought I was becoming a dragon.”

 

“Like that blue chick from Demacia.”

 

“Oh, Shyvana! I have heard stories about her. She sounds quite fearsome.”

 

“Yep. Always wanted to visit, but I couldn’t get my visa. Too many gun control laws.”

 

“Oh. Anyway. I tried for a week to breathe fire, to melt some of the snow in my path to make the road easier to travel. I would roar and imagine a rope of blue flame shooting from my mouth, but I could never make more than a little cloud of smoke. It was frustrating, and I kept roaring harder and louder but it only made more smoke. In the end, I strained my throat and became quite sick. That was right before I met master Yasuo.”

 

Jinx’s mouth curled devilishly. _What a doofus._ “Does this story have a moral? Or at least some kinda twist ending?”

 

“I have been thinking about what lesson I could learn from it. I think it was a trial from the Great Weaver. Perhaps They were telling me to make do with the gifts I already possess and to not lust for more power.”

 

“Or maybe you ARE a dragon and you just weren’t trying hard enough.”

 

Taliyah’s eyes twinkled. “You think so?”

“Definitely. Once I’m gone, a thousand miles away, you should keep yelling and yelling until you puke up a fireball.”

 

“Oh. You are poking fun.”

 

“Maybe that rock is a dragon pearl and you’re just not using it right.”

 

Taliyah glanced back at the red stone lodged in the dirt. She tilted her head to avoid seeing her reflection in it. It only served as a reminder of her shortcomings. She knew there was no such thing as a dragon pearl.

“Maybe.” She rested her head atop her knees.

 

 _Oh my god, stop talking._ Jinx had always had a problem of never knowing when to shut up. One of her old habits she kept when she left Piltover. She hated silence, especially awkward ones. She wanted to keep rambling, complaining, teasing, anything to make noise, but she knew she would eventually say something make the tension between the two worse. It drove her crazy. Typically on nights like this she was alone and could talk to herself all she wanted. Her shoulders stiffened as she fought back against her body’s need to make noise or stomp her feet or shake her leg up and down. To her relief, Taliyah broke the silence for her. She quietly started singing. Her voice was terribly soft and a little scratchy and carried a somber tone that raised the hairs on Jinx’s arms. The song was in a language Jinx had never heard before.

 

 _Kya’ré, vu pali tandu bri’avé_  
fla’né, ii-mundra lonom,  
so’vla, monusi ohna ka’néro  
issa sé-Tu fla’né sho.  
  
Lu-Ri, si na-siel viré?  
Lu-Ri, ansettali’té,  
Lu-Ri, jhi para savu,  
Lu-Ri, andrala cetru.

The lyrics came out in the fluid yet harsh accent of Taliyah’s native tongue. The R and H sounds translated into a rough click from the roof of her throat and many of the consonants flowed together into one sonorous ring. She sang so softly that Jinx may not have heard it if she weren’t pressed up against her the whole time.

 

“What was _that?”_ Jinx asked, her mouth agape.

 

“Oh. It is a lullaby my grandmother used to sing to me.”

 

“That was a lullaby? It sounded more like a funeral dirge!” Jinx recoiled at her own words. _Idiot. Can you just? Stop? Saying dumb shit constantly?_

 

Taliyah was unoffended. “Yes, many people say nasaaji music sounds sad compared to theirs. But it is a very hopeful song. On cold nights like this, it brings a little bit of the sand’s warmth back into my bones. It tells of the Great Weaver, _Lu-Ri,_ wrapping Their faithful into a tapestry of sand and earth and ocean that forms into a world united, where the monsters have been vanquished and there is no more need for people to fight each other. The sun, seeing a new world worthy of its love, washes over the whole world and brings warmth and prosperity with it.”

 

“Huh.” She restrained her comment on how impractical that sounded.

 

“If my singing bothers you, I will stop.”

 

“Oh, uh, no. You do you, girl.” Jinx blurted.  


“Are you sure?”

 

She scooted closer to Taliyah. “Just keep singing.”

 

The music Jinx typically preferred was the loud, crude racket birthed by the youth that called the streets of Zaun’s Undercity home. The last time she had willingly heard music that didn’t rattle her eardrums was from a music box she had when she was a small child. When it unwound, a little clockwork sigil would emerge from the box and slowly unfurl into the shape of a mechanical cat. It played a melody that she thought was far too melancholy to serve as a decent lullaby. Taliyah’s song sent her back in time to her childhood in the Undercity. She remembered the orphanage before the chem barons took over. She remembered sneaking out at night with Ekko and her sister to see what trinkets people from the higher levels had dropped into their quarter. She could still feel the sickly sweet incense they would burn to keep out the choking stench of the city’s ozone emissions sticking to her skin. She remembered the tough but kind attendants and the hot food they prepared every night from seemingly nothing.

 

 _Mm. Hot food,_ Jinx thought. She hadn’t had a proper meal in months, just scraps she stole from whoever she could sneak around. She was getting so hungry that she began to wonder if the pheasant Taliyah had buried was still salvageable. She would even take some wild berries at this point, but after last time she didn’t trust herself to forage for them alone.

 

“What’s taking Riv and Windy so long to get back? Haven’t they been gone for like, three hours?”

 

Taliyah looked up at the moon and made a quick calculation. “Yes, almost three and a half. Should we perhaps go look for them?”

 

“Ugh...that means I have to get up…”

 

“I can go alone, if you’d like to stay and watch the camp.”

 

Jinx’s head snapped toward her benchmate. “No!” Her bark made Taliyah jump in surprise.

“I mean. What if there’s crazy Ionian serial killers or something running around the woods? You’re too pooped to throw any rocks and I’ve just got my Zapper. If-”

 

A wave of terror flushed Taliyah’s previously calm demeanor. “Oh no, you’re right! They could have been ambushed! We’ve got to go see if they’re safe!” She grabbed her sling and the red stone and rushed into the deep forest across the plain.

 

“That’s not what I...ugh, shit!” Jinx rummaged through her pack to retrieve her electrified handgun and stomped into the dark after the stoneweaver.

 

 


End file.
